


Homework

by kethni



Category: Veep
Genre: Gen, pre-Veep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 18:16:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3820126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kethni/pseuds/kethni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Political campaigns are rough enough for adults.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homework

**Author's Note:**

> I planned to do a whole thing with a series of vignettes showing Catherine growing up and interacting with different characters. It didn't work out so this is what would have been the first part.

 

 

It was campaign time again. When the house filled with heavy men clumped together in rooms she suddenly wasn’t allowed to go into, Catherine always knew it was campaign time. Angry men yelling at each other and pinch faced women giving smiles that looked like screams. It was just people and noise and she couldn’t find mom or dad…

‘Whoa, tiny, back yourself up.’ A man squinted down at her. ‘Shouldn’t you be in bed?’

Catherine looked up at the man towering over her. He was old and big and carrying a flask. ‘I can’t do my homework.’ She hurled the offending textbook to the floor. It should’ve burst into flames but instead it just lay there, broken backed and leaking pages.

‘That make you feel better?’ he asked heavily.

‘No.’

‘You mom asked me to see what your problem was. She’s real busy.’ He grunted as he bent down to pick it up. ‘Well maybe Uncle Ben can…Urgh, is this math?’ He straightened up. ‘That’s your problem right there. This kind of math isn’t for regular people. You need some kind of robot person for this.’ Ben tucked the pages back in their place. ‘So happens I know a robot right here in this very building. Let’s go get Kent. He can spit out this kind of thing in his sleep. Or whatever robots do for sleep.’

Her mom was always too busy. Catherine trailed after Ben into one of the smaller reception rooms and tried to avoid the sea of legs.

After a few minutes, someone stood in front of her. Catherine looked up. The man in front of her was dressed almost completely in grey, except for a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the blue striped tie hanging loose. He looked down at her.

‘Catherine?’

‘Yes.’

‘Math homework?’

This time she nodded.

He didn’t call her titch or tiny or even ‘Miss Meyer.’ They always smirked a little when they did that. She hated it. There was one, a horrible, balding one, who called her sweetheart. Catherine would like to kick him in the shins.

She followed Kent into the kitchen. She sat at the table and laid out her textbook, her answer book, and her pen. Her stomach rumbled loudly.

‘You hungry?’

It was well past suppertime. ‘A little bit,’ she said hopefully.

He cut up some cheese and ham and put them on a plate with some grapes and chunks of bread. Bread was a carb and carbs were _bad._ She hadn’t been allowed cheese in weeks. Too fattening. Catherine chewed her lip as he put the plate on the table.

‘Coffee?’

Catherine looked at him. ‘I’m not allowed coffee.’

‘Oh.’ He said it as if the idea of a child not being allowed coffee had never crossed his mind.

‘Could I have some juice?’ she asked.

‘Sure.’

Catherine sipped her juice as he put his mug of coffee down on the table and sat opposite her. As he looked at her textbook, Catherine grabbed a handful of cheese and shoved it into her mouth.

‘Don’t forget to chew,’ he said, still looking at the book.

‘Yeph fir,’ she said through a mouthful of cheese.

Kent’s brows contracted slightly. ‘These seem a little advanced for a child your age. A consequence of private schooling no doubt.’ He interlaced his fingers together and looked at her. ‘Ben seemed to think that you couldn’t do any of this. However, Ben is an idiot. Presumably your teacher went through the basic principles with you.’

Catherine tore off a piece of bread. ‘Ye…ah.’

‘But she went too fast, didn’t explain adequately, and you felt unable to query satisfactorily.’

Catherine nodded, and pushed the bread into her mouth.

Kent checked his watch. ‘I propose we go through two of these step by step. Then you continue and I will monitor your work.’

Catherine looked at the mass of letters and numbers on the page. ‘Okay,’ she said heavily.

Kent narrowed his eyes. ‘Do you enjoy jigsaws?’ he asked.

‘I guess.’

Kent’s hands sketched a shape. ‘You wouldn’t attempt to put together a jigsaw all at once. You find the edges first and then some sky. Any kind of complex problem be it mathematical or anything else should be approached in the same way. Instead of looking at it as once mass, break it down into smaller, manageable steps.’

Catherine lent forward to look at the book. ‘I don’t see any edges or sky.’

‘Even better.’ Kent spread out his hands. ‘With math there is a very specific sequence of steps. Here, I’ll write them down for you.’

‘That other man said you were a robot,’ she said.

‘Ben. He’s an idiot.’ He looked at her blankly. ‘And?’

‘Robots don’t eat ham and cheese,’ she said firmly.

He sipped his coffee. ‘What do you imagine a robot would eat?’

Catherine put her chin in her hands. ‘Electrical things.’

‘Not a bad hypothesis.’ Kent finished what he was writing and turned it around for her to see. ‘But robots are far more efficient than animals.’

‘Are robots real then?’

He interlaced his fingers. ‘Certainly, but as of yet they’re singularly uninspiring. They spray cars or screw lids on bottles.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘The robot uprising is not upon us yet.’ He tapped her textbook. ‘Can we move on from the procrastination portion of the evening?’

***

The food was gone. Her juice was drunk. The page was covered in her neat handwriting. She could actually follow each bit. Catherine looked at Kent.

‘All right then,’ he said, standing up.

Catherine covered her mouth as she yawned.

‘When’s your bedtime?’ he asked.

‘I’m not tired!’ Catherine squirmed off her chair and rubbed her eyes with her fist. ‘Nine.’

‘That was hours ago.’

‘I couldn’t sleep. I forgot I hadn’t done my homework.’ Catherine picked up her books.

‘Ah. Goodnight.’ He turned and started to walk away.

Catherine ran after him. ‘Someone needs to tuck me in.’

Kent paused in the doorway and looked down at her. ‘What?’

‘Someone needs to tuck me in. Otherwise I can’t sleep.’

He stared at her silently for several seconds. ‘Find your mom.’

‘She’s too busy.’ Catherine screwed up her face. ‘She’s always too busy, that’s why she didn’t help with my homework.’

‘No, that was because she couldn’t do it either.’ He put his hands on his hips. ‘Your mother has little appreciation for math.’

Catherine tightly folded her arms. ‘I hate it.’

‘No, you don’t.’

‘I do!’

Kent raised his eyebrows. ‘Do you hate the flight of a bumblebee or the precision of a lioness killing a zebra?’

‘Huh?’

‘Math is the song the universe sings. How birds fly, fish swim, and leopards run are mysteries sculpted by mathematical equations of precision and beauty. Math is the science of art, the language of science, and the art of language.’ Kent shook his head. ‘You don’t hate it. You simply don’t understand it.’

Catherine tilted her head. ‘Can I hate it because I don’t understand it?’

‘Absolutely not.’

She tapped her foot. ‘If I asked you for a story, would it be about math?’

‘Most likely.’

Catherine tilted her head. ‘Are you really a robot?’

‘No.’

‘Okay. Goodnight.’

 

Catherine got an ‘A’ on her homework. Selina had the phone tucked between her head and shoulder as she yelled at someone. She patted Catherine on the head and Andrew stuck the graded paper on the noticeboard. After three days, it disappeared underneath leaflets, letters, and notices. But it was still under there, somewhere.

 


End file.
